Evaluation of deployment alternatives for school wireless networks

Uruguay is undertaking a countrywide deployment of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative, named Plan Ceibal. The technical challenges imposed by this project are both the computing infrastructure, involving the XO laptop distribution to every scholar in addition to the maintenance of a distributed server platform, and wireless communication infrastructure. Rural and semi-rural areas were covered in the first stage of the project, 2008, using a hot-spot wireless deployment strategy, due to the lack of networking infrastructure in these areas. Urban areas, particularly in Montevideo, the capital city, will be addressed in a second stage, where, in order to perform a successful deployment, several issues need to be considered. At this point different scenarios must be studied, therefore network models and software that allows their evaluation at laboratory environment, are needed. With the use of simulators, key networking parameters were tested, such as distance, rates, number of radio interfaces, aiming to reveal how these parameters are related to the network performance (particularly the throughput), and how much each one affects the network models alternatives. In this paper we present the result of the analysis of different network infrastructure models.